Sri Lanka's inflation eases to 5.8-pct in January 2018

Jan 30, 2018 18:33 PM GMT+0530 | 0 Comment(s)

ECONOMYNEXT - Sri Lanka's inflation eased to 5.8 percent in the 12-months to January 2017, from 7.1 percent in December measured by the widely watched, Colombo Consumer Price Index, the state statistics office said.

In the month of January, the price index fell 0.1 point in absolute terms to 122.8 point. A core-inflation index however jumped 0.6 percent, though the 12-month increase slowed to 3.5 percent from 4.3 percent, as last January's 1.3 percent jump fell away.

Sri Lanka's Central Bank has overshot its 4-6 percent target in 2017 and the currency also collapsed in 2015 and 2016 due to excessive money printing and delayed rate hikes.

Monetary policy has improved in 2016 and 2017.

The central bank has bought dollars in 2017 and weakened the currency though it has sterilized the purchases in 2017 reversing the money printing cycle in earlier years. (Colombo/Jan30/2018)